The CBS drama “Person of Interest,” premiering Thursday at 8 p.m. on Channel 4, combines modern surveillance technology and modern paranoia to create a compelling high-tech thriller. Somebody’s watching a flood of data and it’s alerting them to something bad about to happen. Imminent threat! How’s that for relaxing entertainment?

An over-arching mythology will be helped along by a case-of-the-week structure, to give the audience a regular payoff.

Michael Emerson (“Lost”) plays a mysterious billionaire with a secret computer that is able to deduce when someone is either about to commit a crime or about to become a crime victim. It’s up to him to figure out which, and stop it.

He can only do this with the help of a damaged former special agent, played by Jim Caviezel (who seems equally mysterious in real life).

Jonathan Nolan (“Memento”) and J.J. Abrams (“Lost”) have concocted a bold premise. Nolan insists it’s more “science fact” than science fiction, since “the government has been trying to build such a machine for a decade.”

Whether or not you believe that, it’s an intriguing starting point for a forward-looking thriller.

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